Read a Sept. 24, 2006, New York Times story which discusses Bush’s use of the term “Islamofascism” and the controversy it generated.

Read an Oct. 1, 2006, “On Language” column by William Safire of The New York Times, which discusses the roots and meanings of the word.

Read a Sept. 11, 2007, post by David Bernstein at the blog Volokh Conspiracy, which has a critical discussion of the term.

Read the Wikipedia entry on Islamofascism. Because Wikipedia is an open-source site, journalists should double-check references and citations. But the entry does provide a good overview of the origins and meanings of the term.

Joyce Burkhalter Flueckiger, who grew up in India, is a religion professor at Emory University in Atlanta whose specialties include Muslim and Hindu popular traditions.

Jonathan Y. Tan, who was born in Malaysia, is a theology professor at Xavier University, Cincinnati. He teaches courses on Islam, Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism.

Adherents.com provides a list of the numbers of people who self-identify as members of major world religions.

Russell Powell is associate professor of law at Seattle University. His expertise includes comparative religious jurisprudence, with particular interests in Catholic social thought and Islamic legal theory.

The Rev. Lewis V. Baldwin is a professor emeritus of religious studies at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn. He edited the book The Legacy of Martin Luther King Jr.: The Boundaries of Law, Politics and Religion.